Core practices for Foreign Language Teacher professional development: An identity journey

Abstract Practice‐based education offers a straightforward and engaging didactic cycle for teacher preparation around core practices. Although research on this area has clearly shown the importance of linking theory to practice during actual teaching, very little to none seem to have addressed how core practices of language teaching may become a site for preservice teachers' identity building. This case study described how Adriana reshaped her teacher identity as she appropriated the core‐practice of contextualization for instruction and tried to improve her teaching based on it. Findings indicate that learning to contextualize is far from a linear process of acquiring a skill or a set of predefined instructional procedures. Instead, it is an intricate and iterative dialogue between emerging teacher identity and the understanding of pedagogies, theories, and classroom realities. This study study extends our current understanding of the value of a practice‐based approach for leveraging preservice language teachers' construction of their teacher identities as they journey through the challenges of ambitious teaching in the foreign language classroom.